STGT 2010: DANGUN FEVERON thoughts

[Herr Schatten]

seriously if you cant even learn less than 6 minutes of a game to get EASILY over 1.2 mill your probably in the wrong genre.

The problem is not learning the levels, which I agree is easy enough early on. The problem is surviving the boss attacks with a ship that doesn't allow for precision dodging. Add in some input lag, and you get an infinite source of frustration. Not displaying the total score at any point in the game is a massive oversight from Cave, and it's a valid complaint if the game is chosen for a score competition.

[clp]

seriously if you cant even learn less than 6 minutes of a game to get EASILY over 1.2 mill your probably in the wrong genre.

The problem is not learning the levels, which I agree is easy enough early on. The problem is surviving the boss attacks with a ship that doesn't allow for precision dodging. Add in some input lag, and you get an infinite source of frustration. Not displaying the total score at any point in the game is a massive oversight from Cave, and it's a valid complaint if the game is chosen for a score competition.

said ship is a choice though not a requirement , tbh i think the game full stop would be better with a real time scoring system instead of the must complete level to get anything nonsense.

[gs68]

Unlockable broken ship allowed, and unless you make >1.2 million calculating your score is either tedious (if you die in a stage) or impossible (if you die in a boss).

Fuck this game, Pabst Blue Caravan. Like homework that I just can't figure out, I'm not even going to bother turning in a score.

seriously if you cant even learn less than 6 minutes of a game to get EASILY over 1.2 mill your probably in the wrong genre.

Are you trying to Thunder Force III me?

[Herr Schatten]

tbh i think the game full stop would be better with a real time scoring system instead of the must complete level to get anything nonsense.

I agree completely.

[dpful]

Man, I suppose I'll fizzle out at the end of this competition. Although it is nice to know that I can now take the competition directly to the game itself. Dangun Feveron, I WILL get on your scoreboard!

And for anyone who says it's easy, I've got some kind of tick where I've got to play fairly traditionally, so secret ships, and no restarts, just a quarter and an earnest attempt, like at the mall when I was 16.
This game comes close to mars matrix in intensity, and goes right over it's head in general shooty spaziness.

[sunburstbasser]

I like Dangun Feveron a lot. I absolutely love the music, though before even playing it the first time I was already a big fan of classic funk and soul music so this stuff fits right in. I actually listen to "Dancing Bomber" quite a bit.

The score counter bugs me because it isn't there. And while I can make the scoreboard in any of the Cave games I've played much, I've never really tried hard with this one and am topping out at about 500K. Not that I was EVER very good at scoring in any game, though.

I dig the disco.

[SFKhoa]

IF I HEAR THAT FUCKING CAT ONE MORE TIME

[moozooh]

Based on my earlier experience of playing this game for score (where I couldn't even get onto the default scoreboard or reach stage 4), I initially thought I would hate playing this game with passion. But now that I've reached a score I'm pleased with, I can say it was actually alright. Learning the precise layout and RESTARTRESTARTRESTARTing incessantly after accidentally ramming a popcorn enemy from the side or eating the opening shot a medium-sized plane on stage 2 in a several frames-late attempt to point-blank is not my idea of fun — more like the opposite — but the badass feeling of an overpowered ship made it a lot more bearable. In fact I tried going to a normal ship after Uotaro, but it didn't feel remotely useful. It felt like killing enemies took ages and I had to move around the screen more (despite the inability to point-blank everything) and pick up discomen much slower. It was somewhat of a revelation. If the announced M2 port will arrive on a platform I possess I'm going to give the cat another shot. It's certainly more satisfying to play for score with.

Also, playing with muted sound and the soundtrack playing in foobar2000 in background certainly helped. A lot. Too bad many participants didn't realize it was a feasible option.

[defected78]

So when is this coming out on XBL?

Im predicting that Guwange will be out within a month

[Battletoad]

Final thoughts:
The scoring system is neat. The items bouncing back up is a nice and indivual feature. But there are some issues with the overview. Scanning all the bullets and all the discomen is some tough challenge by itself even though I got used to it in the Giga Wings and Mars Matrix. Often I lose my chain without noticing or while noticing too late. I would have liked it better if the colours were swapped, so the upgoing discomen were red. It´s also a little annoying how the numbers can block your view. Like when you´re collecting a bigger bunch of discomen, some big numbers appear directly in front of them, you can´t see for sure if you collected everything and maybe have to fly back. I think Takumi did a much better job in making lots of bullets and lots of items clearly visible.

Moreover Dangun Feveron demands an extremely aggressive style of play where you have to shoot each enemy as fast as possible. This may be quite common in certain shooters, but this game takes it to a whole new level. Overall it´s really hectic, not exactly my cup of tea. That can also be said for the whole game: It´s not bad by any means, but I don´t really like it much.

While Uopoko can be frustrating to play, I gotta say he is awesome practice for other shooters with fast yet not AS fast ships.

[Zetzumarshen]

Difficult to score game. The requirement of clearing the stage for massive bonus is such a wall.

Then noticed that the faster I score/destroy enemies, the harder the game in term of precision. Quick shot requires Uo Poko shotgunning, then get flanked from new enemies while being very top of the screen. Often this leads to either me ramming the enemies, or eating random spawned bullet. But shotgunning is so much fun I won't trade them for survival.

Unpredictable what I want to say about the game. One time that certain wave of enemies won't shoot anything, then on another run, they'll shoot at you at point blank. So, many practice is required so not too getting careless or getting a proper quick shot. The gimmick gave me a hard time and restartritis. Very apparent on stage 1,2, and early stage 3.

Using second type of Uo Poko's shoot (not so wide arc) instead of the third (wider), yields more discomen, especially on later stages. The problem is, it is harder to keep discomen within a good reach. Discomen going up at upper half of the screen at stage 4 or 5 is either chain break, a suicide to get the chain going, a lucky dodge, or a death AND losing a chain.

That's all that I noticed from tens of hours of grinding. So many failure, so little gained.

[gs68]

Heh, no one on my team played. Not to mention there were only like 90 entries anyway.

[sikraiken]

I'll probably try to approach the arcadia record for this, now. I have the PCB so it'll be nice to play on.

[The Coop]

I would have rather pounded my nuts flat with a mallet than played through this game using the cat, but I didn't want to let my team down. And even if you take away the fact that we just played this game in 2008, you still had to play as the cat to try and be competitive with the better players.

I sincerely hope that it will never show up on another STGT again. Twice in a two year stretch is enough.

[sikraiken]

If Venom had played in the tournament, he might have beaten everyone with the regular ship. :D

[clp]

I would have rather pounded my nuts flat with a mallet than played through this game using the cat, but I didn't want to let my team down. And even if you take away the fact that we just played this game in 2008, you still had to play as the cat to try and be competitive with the better players.

I sincerely hope that it will never show up on another STGT again. Twice in a two year stretch is enough.

But you played the time attack mode last time? its a totally different game .

[The Coop]

I would have rather pounded my nuts flat with a mallet than played through this game using the cat, but I didn't want to let my team down. And even if you take away the fact that we just played this game in 2008, you still had to play as the cat to try and be competitive with the better players.

I sincerely hope that it will never show up on another STGT again. Twice in a two year stretch is enough.

But you played the time attack mode last time? its a totally different game .

Same ships, same music, same basic scoring idea (catch discomen), same enemies, same stages. I was happy to be done with the game last time, knowing that it wouldn't come up again for a good while. I was wrong, and thus, wasn't all that happy.

[ED-057]

The thing that bugs me about this game, including the time attack mode, is that I play credit after credit and my score for any particular stage doesn't really change much. It`s not clear how to improve it. "Kill the enemies quickly." Well yeah, I`m trying to kill them quickly, and sometimes I feel like I have done a better job but the result ends up being about the same.

Flying around the screen at warp speed with the cat was amusing, until a group of bullets would show up that couldn't be avoided by simply darting across the screen in a straight line. Then it became a "deer in the headlights"

[moozooh]

Yeah, that's really the problem with the cat: unless you have awesome precision and a suitable controller, it can only dodge in straight lines. That's why your best bet is to destroy everything that can cover the screen with bullets (like those ships in the second half of stage 4, or the post-midboss section of stage 2) before it can even shoot. If it already has, surviving pretty much requires you to press against the bottom of the screen and hold down against it to reduce the movement speed at least a bit.

[Ed Oscuro]

Unlockable broken ship allowed, and unless you make >1.2 million calculating your score is either tedious (if you die in a stage) or impossible (if you die in a boss).

Fuck this game, Pabst Blue Caravan. Like homework that I just can't figure out, I'm not even going to bother turning in a score.

seriously if you cant even learn less than 6 minutes of a game to get EASILY over 1.2 mill your probably in the wrong genre.

It took me more than 6 minutes to get my 1.2 (+100K) mil. Then over the next nearly six and a half hours I made no progress.

Guess I'm in the wrong genre! Thanks for the advice bucko!

OK, overall, I think the game is more brilliant than bad. I didn't even feel fatigued (often) despite probably playing the game more than all the others combined (including ones where I ranked waaaay higher in terms of percentage from the top and bottom, though apparently lots of people didn't contribute scores for this one). But this kind of game is tough on me. I have a lot of scores in the Caravan Shooter style of gaming, it's fun for two or five minutes. But when I spend so much attention trying to get over 320K on the first stage (or 350K - only a 30K difference, which doesn't warrant losing a life for the pickups that will bump you from 320K to 350K, though apparently it's possible to get this score in a no-miss as well) that I spend too much energy on it. Stage 2 is mostly no problem except for dumb random deaths. Three lives isn't a lot to spread across the place in this game.

In terms of sucking in quarters, it's a good design. In terms of providing somebody of my skill a challenging, but fun, experience, it's a bit much. I like games that have high risks and rewards, and little down time, because we only have so much time on this earth to play bad and boring games. It's nice to reward skill and speed by providing more score for doing things more elegantly, and faster, than somebody else, instead of sitting around waiting for a bullet pattern or for an enemy to appear. Catching cybermans is fun. Zooming around the place is fun - I tried playing Fire Barrel as a breather and was shocked how incredibly slow the game scrolls (then I died because like Raiden the game insists on relatively good precision movement). Spending way too much time in level one is not fun. You can't continue with the cat (as far as I can tell - credit in brings up the regular ship selection). Can't use savestates (I tried shmupmame but its driver isn't old enough to support them). I did play the game with something like 24 Firefox windows (with up to 24 tabs in each) open but didn't spot any lag. Well, there were occasions where I felt the game almost had frozen up right when trying to dodge a fatal bullet, but generally it's been very smooth. That's only a few split-second feelings out of the entire time I've played, though.

I can't say what I would have done to make the game more approachable - I don't think it's necessary to "tone it down." I guess it's just a matter of how I approach the game, but it didn't make any sense to me to waste my runs through level 1 by sitting safely at the bottom of the screen. Unfortunately the random deaths that I incur added up and so I only reached level 3 once.

What I would have changed was chucking the regular ships, making the cat standard, getting rid of the meows; that's all.

Can't speak to the ship speed causing problems with tight pattern dodging, because I didn't get to any place where I needed that ability. There is a spot in stage 2 where four of the big ships that come out at the beginning of the stage appear, and if you don't toast them quickly they fill the screen with a pattern of blue bullets. Either you destroy them quickly or you sit tight and hope you don't get hit (which actually can work out as a strategy), hopefully remembering to use the shot change button to try to hit some more.

I really ought to spend some time with the boss rush mode (...if you can use Uo Poko, can't assume shit with this game), since the fucking second boss always gets me stupidly. It's not hard, so much as I botch it in some ridiculous way by trying to be too aggressive (ironically there doesn't seem to be any bonus for quick boss kills, but it's still encouraged to get close because of the increased damage speed multiplier).

[Zetzumarshen]

You can't continue with the cat (as far as I can tell - credit in brings up the regular ship selection). Can't use savestates (I tried shmupmame but its driver isn't old enough to support them).

Insert the credit, and before pressing the start button, input the secret sequence (down up right left up down left right) to continue as the cat. You'll hear the 'meow' sound as you will in the title screen.

[Ed Oscuro]

I was too scared to try

[ShadowWraith]

You can't continue with the cat (as far as I can tell - credit in brings up the regular ship selection). Can't use savestates (I tried shmupmame but its driver isn't old enough to support them).

Insert the credit, and before pressing the start button, input the secret sequence (down up right left up down left right) to continue as the cat. You'll hear the 'meow' sound as you will in the title screen.

Well now, don't I feel dumb. I couldn't think of a way to practise the later stages as the cat and I didn't even think about credit feeding... >_<

Thanks for this!

[esreveR]

I think I got 19 million with the Uo Poko cat but there were a lot of trick or treaters that screwed up my play because I did it on Halloween.

Then I got bored and never saved.

[clp]

I think I got 19 million with the Uo Poko cat but there were a lot of trick or treaters that screwed up my play because I did it on Halloween.

Then I got bored and never saved.

Yeh course you did bro and this one time i rode a unicorn bareback with obama .

[Demetori]

Left REOW
Right REOW
Up REOW
Down REOW
*Power off*

[BIL]

I think I got 19 million with the Uo Poko cat but there were a lot of trick or treaters that screwed up my play because I did it on Halloween.

Then I got bored and never saved.

When falsificare meets shitposting.

[captpain]

What the hell is falsificare and why have I only ever heard that term on this forum?

[BIL]

http://falsificare.com/

[esreveR]

WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT AUTISM